Exit Materia
by Sugarloafin
Summary: When Cait Sith gets crunched by an ancient temple, sucked into a dark void, or eaten by monsters it's easy for Reeve to make another isn't it?


They were reports of strange and sudden disappearances. A dozen people missing off the edge of, well, Edge. They were innocuous looking papers, scattered across Reeve's desk and held in his hands as if he was studying them intently. He was, or at least he had been. He was fairly certain they were simply the result of monster attacks, guard hounds still prowled the wastelands around the ruins of Midgar after all, but he wanted to be absolutely sure that these vanishings weren't the stirrings of remnants of something far more sinister. He'd had enough of that in the recent past to last him forever. He wanted very much to not discover any dark secrets of the company he had once worked for ever again. Half of him supposed that there probably weren't any more, after all how many hidden rooms could there be in executive mansions or the basement of the former headquarters? The other half countered that if human experimentation with a 2000 year old alien in the hopes of developing a race of super soldiers didn't faze the high ranking Shin-Ra execs, why would they bother to stop there? It wasn't like financial resources or availability of test subjects had ever been an issue. Still, there was a limit to how many monstrosities one company could commit, even if the magnitude of the limit was in itself a monstrosity. And hence his hunch that these latest reports were simply disgruntled beasts looking for an easier meal than could be found in amongst the dust and rocks around the remains of the fallen city and it's new and growing satellite.

Whatever the problem was, it needed looking into and solving, but the commissioner of the WRO was not about to send in a team until he knew for sure and certain what he was dealing with. _And not before ye get a good look yerself._ A wry voice sounded in the back of his head. Reeve tried not to give in, but eventually had to smile. Whatever he might present to others, he was a curious cat on the inside. And so he held the papers, was looking directly at them, but not seeing anything remotely resembling the files in front of him.

He had never been able to describe what it was like to anyone else, and after a time gave up trying. Seeing through two sets of eyes, hearing with two sets of ears, smelling two different atmospheres at the same time though they were separated by distances of miles. It certainly detracted one's attention from the task at hand, but he was an ex-Shin-Ra executive, he knew how to multitask. But right then every sense of the one set was tingling, and the other set went completely ignored.

Cait Sith's vantage point was low to the ground, after some inner debate Reeve had decided not to send him out astride the giant moogle that was his usual transport. Cait without the moogle was ill equipped for any sort of fighting, but with the moogle was incapable of any sort of stealth. If Reeve had wanted the little crowned cat to do any fighting, he would have simply sent in a team of soldiers trained for that sort of thing. This mission was simply to get a preliminary look. If he ran into any of the hungry monsters, Cait Sith's best bet would be to simply get out of there as unnoticed as possible. Even the moogle couldn't outrun guard hounds or the like. Cait's ears swiveled to catch every sound, though there was little to hear beyond the dull roar of the city behind him. It was always an interesting sensation for Reeve to hear things so directionally through that half. Human ears heard everything from everywhere at once, but Cait's picked up each individual signal with the precision of a satellite dish. But it was neither the sights nor sounds of the grey city and the wasteland just beyond that had caught his attention so fully. It was the smell permeating through that sector of Edge. Something slightly rotten, but sickly sweet at the same time managed to nearly turn Reeve's stomach as he sat at his desk. Cait chuckled lightly at him and continued sniffing, trying to get a direction for the source of the stench.

Most of the people who lived on that side of Edge had vacated as soon as the first disappearances had occurred. They remembered same as Reeve and Cait what could be lurking in the shadow of the Shin-Ra just waiting for the chance to rear it's ugly head. A few brave ones stayed, and Reeve hoped that if the attacks came again there might be witnesses to give him something, anything more to work with. The reports he still held in his hands had come with no eye witness accounts of any untoward happenings. People had just vanished. Until then, he would simply have to see what he could find on his own. So far it was a whole lot of nothing helpful. The noxious smell aside, there seemed to be nothing amiss on the edge of the city, other than how empty it was. Finally one deep whiff came with a clear impression of _there, _and without another thought, Reeve had Cait bounding off after it. It wasn't long before a new sound began to tickle Cait's whiskers (a sensation that was always fascinating to Reeve) coming from the same place as the smell. Ahead of the little cat was a dark pile of old beams and girders scavenged from the ruins of Midgar. They were stacked in no seeming order, making a sort of dull metal tent filled with shadows. It was from there that the smell emanated, and a dull thunking noise could be heard. Cait crept closer, keeping close to the wall and obeying the curiosity and caution expressed by both halves of Reeve. It was when a glowing pair of eyes appeared in the shadows that the caution won out.

_Cait, get out of there._ Reeve almost growled, something about those eyes had his hackles up. No, not his, Cait Sith's, Reeve had to remind himself. It was times like these that the line between them blurred. Intensity on one side or the other strengthened the bonds. Involuntarily he stood at his desk, leaning heavily on the fake wood as Cait Sith inched closer to the unblinking eyes. "Cait...I mean it." He was unaware he had spoken aloud until he heard the words through both sets of ears.

_Ah, jest a little further. He's already seen me, might as well give 'im a show!"_

Cait Sith was also the half of him that didn't always listen unless it was a life or death situation for someone other than his little robot body.

"That's far enough--aarrrgh!!" Reeve bent double over his desk, papers scattered in the wake of his sudden movement. His hands clutched at the sides of his head as a splitting headache began pounding through his brain in response to his dual senses snapping back into just one body once more. The last image he had seen through Cait's eyes was burned into his retinas for several seconds. Dripping fangs and slavering jaws aimed straight at him, eyes glowing out of the darkness, no way to escape... One last thought came through, fading even as the half of him that was Cait Sith was fading.

_Jest a monster after all, and hungry! But you won't get much o' a meal out o' me..._

And then he was gone, and Reeve was alone, with his single set of senses and the headache that made each of them painful.

"Commissioner?"

Well, not completely alone. There was a whole building full of people around him, and his assistant Marcus standing in the doorway.

"Commissioner, are you alright?" Marcus, bless the man, began picking up the strewn papers from the floor.

"I'm fine." The headache was fading and Reeve felt as if he might be able to look at light again sometime in his life. He bent to help Marcus retrieve the reports and stack them on a corner of his desk. "Really." He felt compelled to add in the face of his assistant's silent skepticism.

"Can I get you anything, sir?" Marcus still apparently was unable to believe the blatant lie that he was fine.

"No, I--I'm taking the rest of the day off." Suddenly Reeve was unwilling to spend the rest of the day alone within himself reading through incident reports and budget proposals. "If anyone calls, tell them I'm sorry and will get back to them tomorrow morning."

As he turned and gathered a few important papers of his desk Reeve thought to wonder if Marcus knew he was the human behind Cait Sith. More and more people did, especially since the whole Deepground thing. But Reeve never really broadcasted the fact, though he was unsure himself exactly why. He certainly never mentioned it openly, even to people who knew for sure. It was easier to pretend to people that the little robot cat was a completely separate entity from him if they didn't know he was the one pulling the strings.

Reeve was down the hall and headed for the stairs before he could let anyone talk him out of it with something urgent coming up. Unless it was urgent enough to involve the destruction of the world or all life on it, he wanted nothing and no one to bother him until morning. Since he'd helped deal with more than one separate instance of world threatening, he figured he deserved something of a break. The world needed him and it would not always wait, but it would have to this time, for a few hours at least. He was out the door of the WRO headquarters by the time he stopped deluding himself. He wasn't leaving work because he needed a break, he was leaving because he couldn't stand to be there as incomplete as he was. Both halves of him were inside his one human body now, but Reeve was not Cait Sith. Cait Sith was all that Reeve wasn't, did all he could not, and had been born out of the need for a Shin-Ra stooge to be able to keep his head down and see only the paperwork in front of him and none of the horrors that so permeated the company. With all of his curiosity and concern poured into the half that was Cait Sith, Reeve could be the sombre executive who could turn a blind eye to anything. It wasn't until Shin-Ra dropped the Sector 7 plate that he began to change, and it took Aerith's death and the summoning of Meteor to show the half that was Reeve just how much he'd been running. Cait had always known, had so cheerfully volunteered to be crushed into the black materia both because he was the best choice for the task and because Reeve had so desperately needed a wake up call. Reeve was not Cait, and the half of him that animated the little robot cat had no place in the body that housed Reeve. The half of him that was Cait Sith felt dead, and that Reeve could not bear.

As soon as the door of his small house was closed behind him Reeve dropped the papers and files he had brought with him onto the nearest free table space without even looking. Next to follow was the long robe-like coat he had taken to wearing to work once he dropped the Shin-Ra standard, generic-man blue suit. The fact that the coat was the same color as the standard issue suit did not escape him. There were some habits you just couldn't shake. He rolled up his shirt sleeves as he walked through the front room into the dining hall he had converted into a workroom a few days after he had moved in. Scattered across the two work benches were various metal bits and discarded tools, electrical connectors and lengths of wire, yards of tape and cans of grease. Beneath the benches were stacked small cans of paint and rolls of paper and fabric, while crates and boxes of small gears and pistons sat in the corners of the room. All of it gleamed invitingly when Reeve flipped on the bright fluorescent lights.

He wasted no time looking about the room and simply set to work. The first Cait Sith he had made had taken him several weeks to get built correctly. He had strived for as much realism as he could put into the little cat, and it had taken some ingenuity to get metal arms and legs to move as gracefully as a cat could. Since then he had perfected the design, made it simpler even as it became more lifelike. He knew every gear and joint and where each needed to be placed. All the parts were in the room somewhere, he had only to dig them out of their hiding places and fit them together. The motions were like clockwork, and not only because he had performed them so many times before. Cait Sith was like a part of himself; a part he knew better than the rest of him at times, and at others was a complete mystery to him. Within a few hours the basic metal form of the little cat was taking shape, after a few more the power cell was connected and he was testing the range of motion in the joints. Reeve wiped his tired eyes, but didn't halt. He simply kicked off his shoes and kept at it until the metal body was complete.

He let himself take a break after that, just long enough to make and devour a sandwich. He had been an architect and Shin-Ra executive first, a tinkerer and robotics designer second, and a stuffed toy maker third, and sometimes he found himself wondering how it had all happened. He had the patterns almost memorized, but kept to the plans anyways like he always did. The black and white fur, the red fabric for the cape, and black string for the whiskers and eyes. Reeve could never decide if it was fascinating or disturbing to see his little cat laid out in pieces before him. Several hours, some hundreds of stitches and many handfuls of stuffing and at last Cait Sith's body was finished. Not complete, far from it, but the construction was finished. The exterior was that of a stuffed cat, black with white points, the interior was a shiny steel skeleton hidden beneath the padding and the fur. And inside this little robot cat, just as in all the others, was a tiny computer that supposedly made it all work. This Cait needed it no more than the first, but just as it was easier for no one to know Reeve was behind the little cat, it was easier for all to think that purely artificial intelligence brought the mischievous cat to life. Reeve was nothing if not thorough, especially when it came to keeping his own secrets.

He never really knew why he had chosen a little booted and crowned cat, except that it fit somehow. Cait Sith was the other half of himself, perhaps that was just that half's true form. Reeve took a few deep breaths, the evening was long gone and the night half spent. There was still one thing yet to do. He gathered the little cat up and held him tight to his chest until he could feel his heart beating through the surprisingly light robot body. Bowing his head low over the fake fur covered head of his cat, Reeve poured that half of himself back to where it truly belonged. The headache came back in a rush as his senses split and his brain tried frantically to come to grips with two inputs once more. Simultaneously Reeve staggered under the sudden pain and Cait Sith leaped nimbly from his grasp. Startled by the sudden movement and off balance both from the headache and weariness, Reeve found himself falling to an awkward sit on the cement floor of the workroom. He watched with a tired smile as Cait Sith did a little tumble and turn, testing each limb.

"Well that was fast!" The little cat's smiling face looked up to him cheerfully. "All in order an' ready fer action!"

Reeve slowly stood so as not to bring back the fading headache. "Not quite, I'm afraid." He reached across the bench to gather up two items before crouching down in front of the little cat. With a theatrical flourish he flipped the little red cape over Cait's shoulders and tied it loosely about his neck. Then he gently set the little yellow crown between the grinning cat's ears. And with that Cait was once again whole and complete.

The next morning Reeve wasn't sure how he managed to get up and to his desk, but it wasn't more than an hour before he fell asleep at it, his head pillowed on urgent reports and budget proposals. He also didn't know how long he'd slept, but when he finally pulled his head off his arms he winced at the crick in his neck. Then he took a bleary look about the room in some confusion. The lights in his office were turned off and the door was shut. His cell phone lay beside the papers he had been sleeping on, the icon on the screen showing it had been turned to silent mode. He turned his eyes to the land phone that sat on the far corner of the desk and saw that it had been unplugged from the jack in the wall. Sitting beside the unhooked phone line was Cait Sith, apparently also sleeping, or at least the robotic cat equivalent. But even as Reeve looked at him the little cat opened his eyes and grinned with a saucy wink. Reeve couldn't get the world to wait for him, but Cait could. About to gratefully return to his nap, Reeve instead caught sight of a pad of paper sitting innocently beside his elbow. He'd been using it the past few days to jot down small adjustments and improvements he had been wanting to make to Cait Sith's inner workings. He read down the list, checking off each item mentally as completed, but his eyes went wide when he reached the last item. The rest of the list was written in his own neat and professional handwriting, but the last entry was scrawled exuberantly by some hand that was not made to hold a pen. Reeve, helpless to do otherwise, laughed long and hard. For several minutes those two scribbled words held him in the grip of helpless amusement, both at himself and the still grinning puss in boots that sat against the wall.

Right below 'more flexible tail sections' was written in Cait's haphazard style 'exit materia.'


End file.
